Upbeat. Positive. Star Wars-Centric.

Main menu

Post navigation

Uncovering The Lost Missions: An Old Friend

The next episode of The Lost Missions was an absolute breath of fresh air after all of the intensity of the last four episodes, doesn’t mean that they weren’t awesome, but it’s always good to have a few lighter-hearted episodes here and there, and An Old Friend majorly delivered. It’s a perfect Star Warsian blend — intrigue, excitement, awkward moments, a couple of laughs, and the always-epic Embo! (I hope I didn’t just go and spoil the episode before adding the spoiler warning… but if you haven’t seen this episode yet, why would you be reading this blog anyway??) Hard to get much better than that, right?! 😀 So onward we go as we dive into a closer look at opener of the next Lost Missions storyline!NOTE: Contains spoilers from Episode III and TCW Episodes Senate Spy, Bounty Hunters, Pursuit of Peace, Crisis On Naboo and An Old Friend

So as we open up, I would try to re-explain the scenario in layman’s terms, but some days, even I get confused over SW politics! I suppose the easiest way to put it is that:
– The war is draining planets of money
– The Banking Clan controls the money
– And the awesome Padme’s coming to their big banking planet Skipio (probably spelled wrong) to get a loan to help these poor planets.
And here come the people who get SWian politics better than I do, yelling at their computers at all I just said wrong. Well, this is a blog partially for SW fans who are learning, give me a break! But yeah, that’s the gist of it. And as we SW fans know, we would never catch Padme doing anything boring; her senatorial work usually results in a lot of excitingness, intrigue, and more often than not some aggressive negotiations 🙂 Of course, I’m sure she was hoping today’d be a bit more of a normal day. Just gonna chat with the lanky Banking Clan dudes and as a result, help a lot of people! How hard could it be? Welp, she most certainly didn’t expect that their “special representative” she’d be working with would be a fellow named Rush Clovis… *sings a line of Taylor Swift’s I Knew You Were Trouble* If you recall, Clovis is tall, dark, and Separatist. He funded that infamous droid factory a few seasons back and evidently is an ex-boyfriend of Senator Amidala’s… anddd he’s still got it bad for her (and also doesn’t understand the meaning of “strong passwords”; how is it that he hasn’t had his identity stolen??). You may also remember how the last time we saw the guy Padme nearly died trying to get important info out of him and his pack of Seps. So naturally Padme’s like “Um, no. Not working with him.” and exits stage right. But well… the boy doesn’t give up easy. He does what no smart guy would ever do when trying to help out an ex… he sneaks through her bedroom window. I literally was kinda shocked at that move, I mean, at least he intended no harm, but it would’ve scared me to pieces! But it’s easy to be a tad more chill when you have a blaster. Clovis has to act quickly and explains that they’re both kinda majorly in trouble. The Banking Clan isn’t exactly swimming in moola like they’d like everyone to believe; they’re well, bankrupt. Which isn’t good when you were sort of trying to help people and these lanky guys aren’t really helping anybody but themselves. And since Clovis knows this, he’s kinda almost killed by a bounty hunter just talking to her. Padme’s not one to trust turncoats like him and raises an eyebrow on his claims, but he’s a persistent little booger, and tells her that the evidence is in the vault computer, and if she can grab it, the two of them can expose the Clan’s doings for reals. After his leaving, she gives the Supreme Chancellor a call and tells him what she now knows. The big cheese’s advice is to “trust an old friend” and get the dirt on the Bankers. IDK man, but he’s still giving me the creeps a bit… he seems to really know something… and I’m rather afraid to find out. But Padme decides she’ll do what she’s gotta do, and she’s awesome that way. The next day, she asks to see the vault, and at their refusal, questions what the Bankers have to hide. Of course, they can’t let her assume that, and first thing in the morning, she’ll get to see the inside of the vault. And until then, the two have some planning to do…
On another side of town (read: planet), the senator, her handmaiden Tekla, and her temporary compadre have gathered at Clovis’s place to plan. Again, it sounds simple enough: Padme gets in the vault, Clovis sets up an explosive on the city’s power converter, the explosion causes major confusion, and in the midst of that, Padme can grab the info that proves the Banking Clan’s profiteering. Now, I know this diverts from the discussion at hand, but anybody else wonder what the climate of Skipio actually is? It’s covered in snow and we can sometimes see our heroes’ breaths, but nobody’s exactly bundled up, either… the weather of SWian planets is a fascinating area of interest to me, because it’s usually not noticeable unless it’s a really hot planet or a really cold planet. Either way, Clovis has a fire going in his cool little fireplace. Of course, is that just because it’s cold or could “setting the mood” have something to do with it? Ew. But you know, you have to feel kinda bad for Clovis sometimes… he has no idea Padme’s in any other relationship. And the last time they saw each other, she was faking an interest in him, and now she makes clear her complete dislike of him. It’s a good thing in a way that Padme has her near-death last time around as an excuse to keep the boy at a distance. Poor guy really can’t shake that crush, can he? You can kinda tell in the way he looks at her, how he’s still sorta hopeful but still pretty bummed because he can tell she’s not feeling similarly. And who knows how close they actually were pre-Anakin? I don’t typically let my mind wander in that direction because I love Anakin and Padme’s thing so much, but these episodes beg some questions.
At the crack of dawn the next morning, Padme joins some of the Bankers on the as-promised tour of the vault. Can we pause for a minute and talk about the coolness of the vault? Aside from its huge cool doors, the interior is so practically glowing gold! It’s so so awesome! It’s funny to think that I’d never expected to see a bank in TCW, but whaddyaknow? 🙂 But for the plan to work, Clovis has to casually leave the scene, and since he’s a representative, he sort of, well, can’t. Thankfully though, he has himself a backup plan… Tekla.
Tekla doesn’t get a lot of screentime in the TCW series, but her role is always important when she is on-screen. She’s awesome in a very subtle way (remember her role in Season 3’s Pursuit Of Peace?), and now she’s proving her awesome in a much bolder manner, becoming a huge part of the plan as she walks through the dark city streets with a detonator. Once Tekla’d placed the detonator right on the converter where it needed to be, her job was done. Oh but as you know “simple is never simple”; Embo was watching, and with a probe droid… and his laser crossbow thing. His (unfortunately for us) well-aimed shot could not, however, keep the detonator from doing its job, and KABOOM it goes and all the lights go out — including the ones in the vault a few blocks away. Because of Tekla’s bravery and sacrifice, Padme has a chance to reveal the truth and use her little USB thing to get the proof in the Banking Clan pudding (I just realized that made no sense whatsoever, but I’m trying, people…). Once she and the Bankers get out, the Senator rocks her acting skills like a boss and shows disdain for their lousy electrical upkeep. It looks like a win for Clovis and Padme, as they now hold the truth in their hands, but well… I guess the Banking Clan is smarter than we thought, and they enter and arrest Senator Amidala without question. Nuts.
A few days later, enter in Padme’s key out: her shining Jedi Knight, Anakin. And he brought R2-D2 along, too. In the privacy of her cell, Padme tries to explain the situation at hand, but the minute she mentions Clovis… Anakin completely freaks out. “What does that loser have to do with any of this?! And why are you… trusting him?!”. Now, I admit I did laugh at some of this conversation on a second viewing, I think mostly just because a part of me can’t believe how all-too-evidently jealous Anakin is, like a overly worrisome wife almost! It’s almost funny. But dang man, I hope he wasn’t serious about the whole “maybe I should just leave you here” bit! It’s interesting, I mean, you’d think being married for like, what, three years, he’d trust her better than anyone. And I started wondering, is it possible to be so overprotective of someone you love that you’d start distrusting them? Obviously, we all know Padme is pretty much everything to him now, and he clearly is willing to do anything for her (like say, join the Dark Side and junk to potentially save her). But you know, I thought about it like with an overprotective parent and a kid in some ways; the parent is so bent on protecting their kid that they don’t trust they’ll be OK on their own because they’re so afraid of something happening to them (if you’ve ever seen Finding Nemo you might be able to see this more clearly). I think Anakin does trust that she can handle herself, but he obviously has some worries about her hanging out with an ex-boyfriend for fear that he could lose her. Perhaps that’s not entirely abnormal for those in relationships to feel like that about their significant other’s old relationships, but Anakin’s seriously not happy about it one bit. So… I think it’s safe to say he has some trust issues, somehow, in favor of keeping Padme alive and with him forever. Which eventually trickles down into the events of Episode III where Anakin’s trust in her dwindles when she makes it clear she’s no fan of his new Empire. But for now, Padme manages to calm Anakin a bit and really get him to understand the high stakes beyond just this dumb awkward love triangle. He agrees to help, but for her, not for the slicked-back Sep she’s working with. Their first stop is at Clovis’s residence, and he doesn’t seem to be anywhere (and Anakin not-helpingly interjects “Perhaps they found what they were looking for and that’s why he’s gone… we can only hope!” 😆 ). But turns out Clovis was just in hiding. And oh boy, when coming face-to-face with each other again, Anakin and Rush bring out the claws! “I’m not giving this information to some pilot!“, “I’m a Jedi Knight and I can help you if you do what I want you to!”.
So much for this being more about exposing the Banking Clan than about the awkward love triangle. But nothing brings people together like somebody shooting at you with a laser crossbow; enter Embo, one of my fave bounty hunters, and his loyal anuba (I think that’s what he is, but I’m probably wrong). It must be kind of weird for Anakin to be on the run from him, considering the last time they hung out, Anakin and Embo were helping train a bunch of Felucian farmers to fight! OK, so maybe there was also that time when Embo was part of the gang attacking Palpatine, but I really can’t hold that against him. Other than that, this is probably the first time I’ve seen Embo working for the bad guys (and ironically the same guy he nearly helped kill… weird, huh?), and it’s another reminder that bounty hunters are willing to do whatever puts bread on the table. So there they were; Anakin, Padme, and Clovis making a run for it, and the boys still have some tension going on. It’s funny, I guess Clovis is now seeing Anakin as potential competition (perhaps understandably; it’s hard to have something on a pretty decent-looking young Jedi). And Padme’s all “Boys! Boys! Stop fighting over meh!” XD Also yeah, they were making a run for it on a small ship on the snowy slopes around Clovis’s place while Embo kept up on his sled/hat with his canine companion at his side (can I just say I really really want that hat?). Who needs the Winter Olympics when you’ve got this, right?! Haha. And escaping from a bounty hunter of his level of awesomeness is no small feat. Padme’s driving, Anakin’s lightsabering back, and Clovis is kinda looking lost in the middle of the whole thing. Interestingly, I couldn’t help but observe that both Anakin and Clovis fit well into the two-guys-fighting-over-one-girl scenario. When Padme gets grazed by laserfire, Clovis rushes to her side to make sure she’s OK while Anakin uses the Force and flings Embo a mile away; this sorta makes Clovis the “sensitive nice guy” and Anakin the “macho bad boy” in the game. In any other show or movie I’d be rooting for the sensitive one, but eh, not so much considering the so-called macho one already won to begin with (and he’s wayyy awesomer). After a number of close calls, the good guys and the bad guys have officially run out of road, and just as our heroes go flying off the mountainside, Artoo shows up with the ship and saves the day! Embo’s left on the cliff with his anuba sweetly fetching his hat for him (Sue me, I think his dog’s cute! Especially when, at the beginning, he gave his master the probe droid like it was a tennis ball X3 ), but as Embo finds out in a quick call from Darth Sidious, his job’s done, and Sidious is going to do the rest of the job himself. So… does that mean that Anakin, Padme, Artoo, and Clovis didn’t get away completely scot-free after all?? Uh-oh…
So yeah, this episode was awesome! So much excitement and intrigue with a perfect little dash of levity, and Embo, of course 🙂 Where things go from here, we can only imagine! Though I have a feeling it’ll be pretty awesome! Until next post…